I then saw that in these Ministries the impossible had been attempted in the way of centralisation. The principle of the Autocracy had been carried into the administrative domain, and every trivial detail affecting the government of an Empire stretching from the Pacific to the Baltic was in theory controlled by one man, the Minister of the Department concerned. Russians are conspicuously lacking in initiative and in organising power. The lack of initiative is perhaps the necessary corollary of an Autocracy, for under an Autocracy it would be unsafe for any private individual to show much original driving power: and organisation surely means successful delegation. A born organiser chooses his subordinates with great care; having chosen them, he delegates certain duties to them, and as long as they perform these duties to his satisfaction he does not interfere with them. The Russian system was just the reverse: everything was nominally concentrated in the hands of one man. A really able and zealous Minister might possibly have settled a hundredth part of the questions daily submitted for his personal decision. It required no great political foresight to understand that, were this administrative machine subjected to any unusual strain, it would collapse into hopeless confusion.
Being no longer young, I found the penetrating damp cold of Petrograd very trying. The airlessness too of the steam-heated and hermetically sealed houses affected me. I had, in any case, intended to proceed to the West Indies as soon as my task in Petrograd was concluded. As my business occupied a far longer time than I had anticipated, I determined to go direct to London from Petrograd, stay two nights there, and then join the mail steamer for the West Indies.
Thus it came about that I was drinking my morning coffee in a room of the British Embassy at Petrograd, looking through the double windows at the driving snowflakes falling on the Troitsky Square, at the frozen hummocks of the Neva, and at the sheepskin-clothed peasants plodding through the fresh-fallen snowdrifts, whilst the grey cotton-wool sky seemed to press down almost on to the roofs of the houses, and the golden needle of the Fortress Church gleamed dully through the murky atmosphere. Three weeks afterwards to a day, I was sitting in the early morning on a balcony on the upper floor of Government House, Trinidad, clad in the lightest of pyjamas, enjoying the only approach to coolness to be found in that sultry island. The balcony overlooked the famous Botanic Gardens which so enraptured Charles Kingsley. In front of me rose a gigantic Saman tree, larger than any oak, one mass of tenderest green, and of tassels of silky pink blossoms. At dawn, the dew still lay on those blossoms, and swarms of hummingbirds, flashing living jewels of ruby, sapphire, and emerald, were darting to and fro taking their toll of the nectar. The nutmeg trees were in flower, perfuming the whole air, and the fragrance of a yellow tree-gardenia, an importation from West Africa, was almost overpowering. The chatter of the West Indian negroes, and of the East Indian coolies employed in the Botanic Gardens, replaced the soft, hissing Russian language, and over the gorgeous tropical tangle of the gardens the Venezulean mountains of the mainland rose mistily blue across the waters of the Gulf of Paria. I do not believe that in three short weeks it would be possible to find a greater change in climatic, geographical, or social conditions. From a temperature of 5° below zero to 94° in the shade; from the Gulf of Finland to the Spanish Main; from snow and ice to the exuberant tropical vegetation of one of the hottest islands in the world! The change, too, from the lifeless, snow-swept streets of Petrograd, monotonously grey in the sad-coloured Northern winter daylight, to the gaily painted bungalows of the white inhabitants of the Port-of-Spain, standing in gardens blazing with impossibly brilliant flowers of scarlet, orange, and vivid blue, quivering under the fierce rays of the sun, was sufficiently startling. The only flowers I have ever seen to rival the garish rainbow brilliance of the gardens of Port-of-Spain were the painted ones in the "Zauber-Garten" in the second act of "Parsifal," as given at Bayreuth.
It so happened that when Nicholas II visited India in 1890 as Heir-Apparent, I stayed in the same house with him for ten days, and consequently saw a great deal of him. He was, I am convinced, a most conscientious man, intensely anxious to fulfill his duty to the people he would one day rule; but he was inconstant of purpose, and his intellectual equipment was insufficient for his responsibilities. The fatal flaw in an Autocracy is that everything obviously hinges on the personal character of the Autocrat. It would be absurd to expect an unbroken series of rulers of first-class ability. It is, I suppose, for this reason that the succession to the Russian throne was, in theory at all events, not hereditary. The Tsars of old nominated their successors, and I think I am right in saying that the Emperors still claimed the privilege. In fact, to set any limitations to the power of an Autocrat would be a contradiction in terms.
Nicholas II was always influenced by those surrounding him, and it cannot be said that he chose his associates with much discretion. There was, in particular, one fatal influence very near indeed to him. From those well qualified to judge, I hear that it is unjust to accuse the Empress of being a Germanophile, or of being in any way a traitor to the interests of her adopted country. She was obsessed with one idea: to hand on the Autocracy intact to her idolised little son, and she had, in addition, a great love of power. When the love of power takes possession of a woman, it seems to change her whole character, and my own experience is that no woman will ever voluntarily surrender one scrap of that power, be the consequences what they may. When to a naturally imperious nature there is joined a neurotic, hysterical temperament, the consequences can be disastrous. The baneful influence of the obscene illiterate monk Rasputin over the Empress is a matter of common knowledge, and she, poor woman, paid dearly enough for her faults. I always think that Nicholas II missed the great opportunity of his life on that fateful Sunday, January 22, 1905, when thousands of workmen, headed by Father Gapon (who subsequently proved to be an agent provocateur in the pay of the police), marched to the Winter Palace and clamoured for an interview with their Emperor. Had Nicholas II gone out entirely alone to meet the deputations, as I feel sure his father and grandfather would have done, I firmly believe that it would have changed the whole course of events; but his courage failed him. A timid Autocrat is self-condemned. Instead of meeting their Sovereign, the crowd were met by machine-guns. In 1912, Nicholas II had only slept one night in Petrograd since his accession, and the Empress had only made day visits. Not even the Ambassadresses had seen the Empress for six years, and there had been no Court entertainments at all.
The Imperial couple remained in perpetual seclusion at Tsarskoe Selo.
In my days, Alexander II was constantly to be seen driving in the streets of Petrograd entirely alone and unattended, without any escort whatever. The only things that marked out his sledge were the two splendid horses (the one in shafts, the loose "pristashka" galloping alongside in long traces), and the kaftan of his coachman, which was green instead of the universal blue of public and private carriages alike.
The low mutterings of the coming storm were very audible in 1912. Personally, I thought the change would take the form of a "Palace Revolution," so common in Russian history; i.e., that the existing Sovereign would be dethroned and another installed in his place.
I cannot say how thankful I am that so few of my old friends lived to see the final collapse, and that they were spared the agonies of witnessing the subsequent orgies of murder, spoliation, and lust that overwhelmed the unhappy land and deluged it in blood.